A Withered Hand Waves from Across the Border

Ahead of the upcoming gig of Kathryn Williams and Dan Willson (aka Withered Hand) at Chelmsford’s Hot Box, Joe Harvey talked with the latter.

They spoke about Dan’s early love of live music fostered in Essex grassroots music venues, his adopted home of Edinburgh, his influences, and the burgeoning songwriting relationship with the great Kathryn Williams.

For those in the know, Dan Willson, with his trademark wobbly falsetto and profound/profane indie ballads about love, self-loathing, and God, is one of the most uniquely gifted English songwriters of the last fifteen years.

From Bishop’s Stortford…

However, you’d be forgiven for thinking he is from Scotland. It’s in Auld Reekie where he built a life and DIY career in off-kilter indie-folk. I first glimpsed his bedraggled genius in blurry YouTube posts of ‘Religious Songs’ and ‘Love in the Time Of Ecstacy’.

He seems inherently Scottish with his songs that are drenched in wit and melancholy in equally intense measures. Among his peers is Fence Collective’s talismanic leader King Creosote (Kenny Anderson), a long-time collaborator and champion of his work. His status as honorary Scot is undeniable.

But Dan formulated his early love of music and live performance in the environs of Essex having grown up a long way from Edinburgh in Bishop’s Stortford. He escaped the confines of his humdrum small English hometown, and his strict religious upbringing, to find joy and escape across the county line, in Harlow’s now defunct but still fondly remembered venue, The Square, back in the early 90s.

The Square RIP

He said: “My formative years of becoming initiated into a love of live music and songs really revolved around getting the train to and from The Square. That place was a lifesaver for me and my teenage friends. We would be there regularly at weekends, soaking it all up.

I got into a band around that time, as the token shy guitarist. I learned a lot from the practice of coping with being onstage in front of an audience. It was occasionally excruciating but was inexorably drawn to it. We played The Square a few times, mainly to our friends.

I don’t remember being aware of any local music scene I found particularly captivating in Bishop’s Stortford. However, The Square in Harlow was so eclectic. You’d get great songwriters like Murray Torkildsen, who mystifyingly always remained a local legend. Then, the next night, a soon-to-be-famous American indie band on their first UK tour, stopped there after playing a way larger venue in London.

As a teenager growing up in a small town, The Square was a window onto a possibility of a creative outlet far outside of anything we knew. It exposed us to stuff we knew nothing about.”

…to Edinburgh

Dan’s infatuation could only grow when he moved to Edinburgh in the late 90s.

“The Edinburgh scene that nurtured me in my early days of becoming a singer-songwriter was also brilliant: low-key, grassroots, and collaborative. One or two DIY promoters (e.g. Tracer Trails and The Gentle Invasion) pretty much held that scene together. Nobody was that bothered about making money from it. There was more a sense of a thriving community and just making things happen. The shows would typically be inclusive, all ages, serving tea and toast alongside BYOB.

Venues would often be disused buildings, church halls, or community centres. Everybody would muck in and there was always someone with a PA who would do sound at most of the shows, keeping it all out of the loop of the normal live music industry of the city. The camaraderie of that early scene, and its connection with Fence Collective activities in Fife, was such a great time and has informed my approach to what has become a music career since.”

Withered Hand’s first full-length album Good News (SL Records, 2009) is a beautifully lo-fi anti-folk affair. Dan’s lyrical skills are at the centre and established him as one of the few English indie songwriters of that period. He wrote songs that dealt openly with Christianity in a meaningful/honest/funny way. With everyone from Nirvana and AC/DC to The Silver Jews and Pavement referenced in Dan’s songs, and a cover of a Charles Latham number, Dan’s influences seemed wide ranging from country and grunge to lo-fi indie and even metal.

Debts of inspiration

“My influences change all the time. This week it’s probably Michael Stipe because I have been listening to old REM records. Next week it could be Joni Mitchell, Johnny Rotten, Lucinda Williams, or Jason Molina. Or even people I know and love like Kathryn Williams, Hamish Hawk, Darren Hayman, King Creosote, or James Yorkston. If I like a lyric or piece of writing, it’s usually because it invites me to see something in a new way or it expresses something that strikes a chord in me and is exciting and revelatory. There are way too many debts of inspiration to mention.”

The mainstay is the acoustic guitar

“I am committed to the acoustic guitar though, in my own songwriting. The reason being it’s the instrument I discovered my musicality and songwriting voice through. Even though I am not the most sophisticated guitarist, the magic of that has never worn off. I’m not as fussed about making music with lots of things you have to plug in; an electric guitar and a simple pedal board is already pushing it. I don’t know if I will ever veer towards heavy music. It’s unlikely now as I am enjoying the troubadour approach but who knows?

I did certainly listen to a lot of heavier music in the past. Iron Maiden, Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica, Sepultura, Anthrax, Sabbath, AC/DC. There’s a certain vintage of metal and rock music I was quite taken with as a youngster. Some of that music I could still find exciting in a nostalgic way. But it’s not really something I listen to or take comfort in these days. The heavy metal Withered Hand LP could still be some years away.”

Peerless back catalogue

Dan’s magical indie/anti-folk albums have been beautiful gems but few and far between punctuated by some equally wonderful EPs (Inbetweens is a moment of perfection). His 2014 album New Gods, on Fortuna Pop, the follow-up to Good News, was a much bigger and more sophisticated affair in production and songwriting terms. Guest appearances by the late Scott Hutchinson of Frightened Rabbit, King Creosote, Eugene Kelly, and members of Belle & Sebastian reflected Dan’s esteemed place within the Scottish indie ‘music-rati’. He’s a much-loved and revered figure who many other talented songwriters look up to. Indeed, King Creosote described him as ‘the best lyricist’ he’d ever come across!

Collaboration with Kathryn Williams

Kathryn Williams: a unique talent

Kathryn Williams’s first album was Dog Leap Stairs and was put out by her own Caw Records label in 1999. She has released 14 studio albums, written and arranged for a multitude of artists, and was nominated for the 2000 Mercury Music Prize for her second LP Little Black Numbers.

She has collaborated and recorded with artists including Chris Difford, Ted Barnes, Thea Gilmore, John Martyn, Joel Salakula, Tobias Froberg, Ed Harcourt, James Yorkston, Marry Waterson, Boo Hewerdine, and Paul Smith.

Source: Wikipedia

“Playing and writing with Kathryn has been such a gift. That friendship and collaboration re-ignited my belief in my own songwriting. We are great supporters of each other and I hope will be for years to come. The songwriting process we have is organic. Lots of it comes from chatting away about all kinds of stuff and making sense of our lives. Then, typically, Kath or I will pluck something, a line maybe, from the conversation and we will start riffing off each other until we have some words on a page or a tune and a few lines and we’ll take it from there. We wrote that Willson Williams album kind of accidentally. It’ll be interesting to see if we could do it again on purpose.”

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Kathryn Williams and Withered Hand play the Hot Box on 26 September. Limited tickets available, get yours here. The Hardy Perennials provide the support. Dan and Kathryn will perform solo and then the whole of their Willson Williams album in full!

Grab tickets to catch a homecoming of sorts for Dan. It’s a unique opportunity to see these two fantastic songwriters up close and personal in a great grassroots venue.

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